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Destiny Littleton was supposed to take a flight from Israel to the United States on Tuesday. That plan is now up in smoke, as she navigates Jerusalem’s air raid shelters during the Iranian counterattack. She doesn’t know when she will come home.
The former NCAA and Team USA women’s basketball player moved to Israel in November to play for Hapoel Jerusalem in the country’s top women’s basketball division. She called it an “incredible” experience, ahead of Saturday. But now she has said she would not return to Israel if she could do it all over again.
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South Carolina guard Destiny Littleton (11) plays during a women’s college basketball game between the Kentucky Wildcats and the South Carolina Gamecocks at Colonial Life Arena in Columbia, South Carolina on January 9, 2022. (John Byrum/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
“It’s scary. And it’s hard not to wonder the ‘what ifs’. You really can’t. We’re going to have to pray and hope that everything will be OK and we can leave safely,” Littleton told PK Press Club Digital.
Earlier Sunday, an Iranian missile struck a location just 30 minutes from Littleton, killing eight people.
“This is my reality right now. It’s a war zone. Right now it’s pretty routine, you sit there, you wait for an alert on your phone, you wait for a siren, you go into shelter in place, you wait for the green light, and you do it again, and do it again, and do it again,” she said.
“We are in a country that is unfortunately used to this type of activity, so they are normalized to it, so it is a shame that they are normalized to it, but we are not, so it scares us.”
On Saturday, Littleton posted an Instagram video of her, her teammates and residents screaming in fear as drones flew over a building they were in, while explosions went off in the distance.
In previous videos, she documented her experience fleeing to a bomb shelter while sirens blared in the background, then moving to a new location after the first shelter she went to felt “uncomfortable.”
She even had difficulty keeping up with the news of the situation, because the only information she could access was broadcast in Hebrew. She is also wary of some of the information disseminated, calling it “propaganda.”
Littleton expects this experience to have an impact on his psyche moving forward.
“Right now, I can’t tell you what effect this will have on me. But I do know that with over 48 hours in an active war zone, even the little noises you jump at,” she said. “So there’s going to be some trauma.”
She does not expect to return to Israel to play basketball in the future. Littleton said she researched the potential risks of moving to Israel and learned about the country’s conflicts with neighboring countries. But she didn’t expect it to reach this level.
“I had to make a decision, and the decision came after a lot of research,” she said. “I had friends who were already here, and I was asking them… so I got a lot of positive feedback, and I ultimately made the decision to come here… It just comes down to taking risks, weighing the options, understanding the situation and whether it’s a current threat or not.”
Politically, Littleton has mixed feelings about his country and Israel’s decision to strike Iran and spark the current conflict.
“The United States is trying to stop a regime that is terrible for the whole world, but on the other hand, it is the United States that is doing Israel’s bidding,” she said.
“My opinion is that I am against the period of war. I am against what war can do. And I don’t like the way [President Donald Trump] made this decision on his own. »
Littleton is one of three prominent American basketball players stuck in the country during the Iranian counterattack.
Littleton, who won a national championship at South Carolina under coach Dawn Staley in 2022, and a gold medal for the United States at the 2017 FIBA 3×3 U18 World Cup, is there with WNBA veteran Tiffany Mitchell and former Phoenix Mercury forward Mikiah Herbert Harrigan.
Staley said Saturday that the university was working to bring all three home.
“We are working on a plan to get home. Praying that our loved ones return home safe and sound as soon as possible!” Staley wrote about X.
Littleton said Staley assured him that South Carolina officials were “doing everything they can to get us home safely.”
“She really cares about her babies. We will forever be her babies. And she tries to be there for us 7,000 miles away,” Littleton said. “Because of the type of person she is, she’s going to use her reach to make sure we can get home as safely as possible. So it’s been a lot of checking and making sure everything is OK.”
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Although Littleton said she wouldn’t go to Israel in November if she’d known it would happen, she reflects on the positives from her experience there to keep herself “sane.”
“I had an amazing year this year,” she said. “I opened a lot of doors for myself, so that’s definitely a plus. I got to play the game that I love and experience another country. So there are positives, and with the situation that’s happening, being able to look at all the positives will kind of keep you sane.”
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